Outrage over call for population engineering

A Danish academic has sparked an uproar by calling for state measures to encourage childbearing among intelligent people but to dissuade those with low intellectual ability, to create what he called a better society.

Helmuth Nyborg, a well-known psychology professor at the University of Aarhus who specialises in intelligence research, said it was time to "abandon the politically correct" and to practise selection in order to "improve the coming generations and avoid degenerates in the population", in comments at the weekend.

"I'm aware that my proposal breaks a taboo that dates back more than half a century, since Hitler's Aryan race program, and it is very controversial. But the debate has to be raised now because the trend is cause for concern in Denmark, where we have an increasing number of problem kids."

His proposals triggered outrage among many politicians and experts. The Integration Minister, Bertel Haarder, said Dr Nyborg's suggestions were "against all moral principles".

Dr Nyborg said intelligence was hereditary and statistics showed that women with lower education had more children than highly educated women, who tended to spend more time studying and working before starting a family.

He suggested that highly educated women could have their workloads reduced, while less intelligent parents could be paid to not have children.

"It's easy to make associations to Hitler and Nazism, as my critics do. But this has nothing to do with Nazism. Hitler was not a eugenicist, but an ideologue who abused the program of procreation," he said. "He didn't want to improve the human race, he wanted to eliminate certain groups such as Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, and he massacred the most intelligent among them.

"Between 10 and 20 per cent of the population, who are at the lower echelon of society and who cannot fill in a time sheet at work or who cannot hold down a job or take care of their children, should not have children," he said.

"We are all aware of this problem, but we don't dare talk about it. But we should, for the sake of society and the future, so that we can have productive citizens and not people who need help."